The Article
by so kiss me goodbye
Summary: Who convinces Ellie Miller to give an interview after the trial in series 2? What would she say and does she answer Beth's questions? Companion piece to Heart on Her Sleeve over at bluelamia on tumblr.
1. the article

**A/N: **I was curious about what Ellie might say if she gave an interview, so I had fun writing a feature _Heart on Her Sleeve_. Then I started wondering how the interview might have come about—and how it might have affected Ellie and Beth.

This story is the result.

(To read the actual article, go to bluelamia (at tumblr) and click on 'articlefic'. Because of the way the article is laid out, I can't post it here :)

**June 15, 2014**

Ellie knew what he was after with the first rasp of his familiar, cigarette-scorched voice. Her stomach knotted and rolled, and she cast about for an aisle to duck down.

Bit hard in the frozen food section.

'Ellie! Got a minute?'

She used to return phone messages. These days she ignored the impulses telling her not to return them was impolite. Clearly five unreturned calls hadn't been enough to send him a message.

Pat Jones pulled his trolley to a stop. 'You're a worry, you.'

Her lips compressed into a thin smile. Where were all these so-called concerned friends a few months back? She schooled her face not to betray the uncharitable thought. She never used to do that—hide what she was thinking.

Have uncharitable thoughts.

Mind you, she had also never known she was so readable. Not that her actual thoughts mattered. People read what they wanted and her story was a bestseller straight off the horror shelves.

She forced herself to look at Pat. It wasn't fair to say her friends had disappeared. She'd made herself difficult to find. She had to own that.

'Still here, Pat. Still hanging in there.'

'Do your worst, eh, world?'

Pat's wiry salt and pepper eyebrows sprouted over his grandfather glasses and a smile Ellie remembered well from her earliest policing days beamed down on her.

She used to enjoy their regular chats over cups of tea—back when she was a young constable assigned to the weekly media roundup and he was the Echo's shabby, old-school hack on the police beat. They'd shared a laugh until policy changes and newly appointed communications managers strangled the flow of information and goodwill between their workplaces.

The good old days were long gone. Pat had retired from the paper, got bored, and thrown an unexpected windfall into his own hobby magazine. Ellie had risen the ranks until ….

With nothing to say, Ellie gave another pinched smiled. That was the only effort she was prepared to make in this conversation.

'No-one's got a quote out of you yet.'

Here it came.

'Pat—' She gripped the bar on her trolley.

'Can't blame me for trying.'

Ellie sighed and nodded. At least he was straight up about it. She nudged her shopping cart, cursing a stubborn caster which jammed when she tried to push off.

'If you change your mind ...'

'I won't,' she said quickly.

She lost any hope she could shake him when he lined his trolley up with hers. His was running high on booze and deli bar foods. The enticing aroma of hot roast chicken wafted up her nostrils. Her own trolley held less promise of excitement: nappies for Fred, bread, milk, a token broccoli and—she paused to fish about in the chiller—those processed chicken nuggets Tom said he liked.

'Look, I know the idea sounds daunting, but we're not all fiends. And not all press has to be negative. We're not all out to paint you as bad as Mata Hari. I reckon most people know that's not the truth.'

For a second, sound screeched in her ears and her heart pounded against her chest. Myra Hindley? But he hadn't said that. Cruelty and bad taste weren't his style. It was her brain which supplied that name.

She spoke to cover her pain. 'I said everything that matters. On oath. Not that it counted for anything.' She tasted her bitterness. 'Talking—or not talking—can't change a thing.'

Her hands squeezed tighter. She supposed she should appreciate his offer, but the notion of spin—whatever way it went—offended her. Why did things need a slant? Why couldn't the facts (just the facts, mind you)—laid out in sequence—be enough. Then people could make up their own minds.

Pat put his hand on the rim of her trolley, his bespectacled face earnest. 'It might be an important thing to do for yourself.'

'You would say that.'

'It's not going away, Ellie.'

A shopper digging through packets of stir fry dropped her head when Ellie looked at her. The woman's stare had lasted a fraction too long to be a casual glance. Ellie recognised her as the wife of an accountant done for drink-driving a year and a half before.

Everyone had a story.

Pat went on. 'It might drop off the boil, but it's always going to be there. There are people need to hear you.'

She rounded on him. 'Why? What do I owe anyone?'

His hands went up. 'I didn't mean it that way.'

'Well, what way did you mean it?'

'Ellie, some people'd be okay taking the silent track. They're the ones who can lock themselves away. They don't care. I can't see you doing that.'

'Yeah, well, it's not just me I have to think of. Tom and Fred have to live in this town. They didn't ask for any of this.'

'Love, worst things have happened to Tom already than his mum giving an interview in a magazine.'

Ellie jiggled the trolley to loosen the sticky caster. When it freed itself unexpectedly she staggered forward a step. Pete's hand went out again to steady her.

'Let us do it. We're small, we're independent. Kate can do it—she's been dying for something to do justice to.'

'Kate?'

'Kate. My wife?'

'Your—'

'Sh*t. Of course, you wouldn't know. Six months ago. Met her—well, tripped over her to be more precise—on the deck of a cruise ship. Two weeks later—whoosh—didn't see that coming.'

Ellie took in the crisp edges of his pressed shirt and the goofy smile he still had on—signs she would have once seized on in an instant. Old Pat thought nothing of turning up at the station in crumpled blazer and mismatched tie. She wondered what kind of miracle worker had forced him to spruce up his image. At least his wonky combover hadn't been ironed out.

'That's lovely—congratulations, Pete.' This time her smile was genuine, but she felt her own failure. When had she stopped looking at people? Taking things in? Was it when they started looking too closely back at her?

'Right. Yes. Kate freelances.'

'For you?'

'Not exactly. The old Wessex L grumbles a bit at her rates—but I'll make an exception for this.'

'I don't—'

'You won't be able to keep it in forever, Ell. Everyone cracks in the end.'

Hardy's face popped into her mind. Next to Olly's byline.

'The trick is to not to crack in front of the wrong bastard. Kate's not a fool—she won't let you get away with rubbish, but she'll give you a fair hearing.'

A fair hearing. That made it sound like another round of judgement. Ellie felt her temper rouse again. She didn't need anymore of that in her life.

But before she could open her mouth, the image of Joe in the dock sprang into her mind.

He got a fair hearing. God knows, more than fair. She felt the familiar heat of tears kindling in her eyes. Her breathing would go haywire if she couldn't control herself. The shallowness was already starting in her chest.

She really didn't need this. She'd thought she was past this stage.

She had begun to move from that somnolent catatonia that marked her days in Devon. During the trial she was functional—until, suddenly and at last, a flicked switch had woken her up.

Anger (the healthy kind—not Beth's blind rage—her therapist assured her) still stoked her during the day, but she did a good job of parcelling it up until she needed it.

The last thing she needed here, in the supermarket, was a reminder that her sleep was still a butchered wasteland and that as strong as she had grown, tears still came far too easily.

But the chance to be judged—fairly. Maybe she secretly craved it? Because a just verdict would find her innocent.

Pat must have sensed her resolve weakening. 'Kate'd do the job properly.'

'Can't you do it?' Her voice was small.

'Kate's the one you want, Ell.'

'But you know—'

'And Kate doesn't. She's new to Dorset. She'll bring a degree of impartiality.'

'I don't know—'

'Character piece. You'll be fine.'

'Maggie's been so good to me ...'

'Maggie will understand. If she gets Olly to beg nicely, the Echo—and only the Echo—can reprint it. Paper only. Digital won't be in the deal. Bastards'll just do a write-off anyway—but let's makes 'em work for it.'

'I don't know, Pat. If I talk to you, I don't want a thousand calls from people expecting more.'

'You know what they say, Ell. Today's news is tomorrow's fish 'n chip paper.' He squeezed her hand. 'Do it on your terms. Sod the rest. They'll soon find something new to distract them.'

'Could I see it first?'

'Ellie,' he chided, 'let's do this the way that preserves everyone's integrity.'

* * *

**June 18, 2014**

'I did it. I spoke to them.'

Ellie hesitated on the doorstep.

Beth willed herself not to bristle. It was hard but she had to fight this possessiveness. The feeling that Danny was _her_ story and hers alone to tell. That she alone was the gatekeeper to the truth of his death.

She clutched for an appropriate response. Ellie's dark eyes were fixed on her. Friendship was no longer something either of them could afford to take for granted.

'And?' Beth said at last, drawing her cardigan across her front. 'Are you coming in?'

She padded back to the kitchen and the baby bottles she was sterilising, hearing Ellie rustle behind her. It would be nice when summer reappeared. Beth was sick of needing extra layers to go outside.

'Comes out Friday,' Beth heard Ellie say. 'Pat says he won't run off additional copies—says he's not doing it for the sales—then they'll let the Echo reprint it in that Saturday extra thing they do.'

God, what should she say? Beth struggled with her inadequacy. 'How you feeling?'

'Like this weekend'd be a good one to take the kids on holiday.' There was no hint of laughter in Ellie's voice.

'Ell—'

'I don't remember what I said. My mind's gone blank. God, Beth, what if I've made a mistake? Said something—'

Beth understood the fear. She'd witnessed events spiral beyond control after that first interview with Karen White. She remembered Jack Marshall. She knew a flippant 'what could go wrong' was tempting fate.

'What if I've made it worse somehow?'

Beth could have laughed. _Your husband murdered my son—it doesn't get worse._ There was no malice in the thought. Only a desire to comfort with honesty. But that might be too brutal.

'Listen. You and me—we've both been to hell and back—it didn't get us then and it won't get us now.'

She meant her words to bolster Ellie. To assure her. That's what people did, didn't they? But there was no lessening in the pain on Ellie's face.

'There's so much I don't remember.' Lingering on the threshold of the dining room, half in, half out, Ellie drooped in dejection.

Making a snap decision, Beth crossed the room and scooped Ellie into a hug, feeling her friend flinch and then sag.

Beth stared down the hallway as she held Ellie close. 'It's usually you looking after me.'

Her rage had been a storm which had blown itself out during the trial. Blown until one day when Beth had entered the courtroom to hear the end of Mark's testimony, she had looked at Ellie and felt ... stillness.

Of course, Mark had become the new object of her anger—only—even that seemed pointless. At long last Beth knew all her energy to hate was gone. Burned out of her. She had no native fuel left to sustain it.

That night she had dreamt she was walking down her hallway. Nothing new in that. She'd been wandering the house in her dreams for months. The doors were never in the right place. Some were locked. Others were so narrow only a wafer would squeeze through. Periodically she came across one door with a handle glowing red—and if she touched it she woke with fingernail marks embedded in her palms.

But that night the house was back to normal. Except now the glow of the red handle was fading.

It was time to go through that door. She owed Ellie that much.

'Did you talk about where you went, Ell?'

Under her arms, Ellie stiffened. 'It doesn't matter.'

'I think it does.'

'No, really. Best left alone.'

The coward in Beth felt like agreeing. The topic was clearly unpleasant for Ellie. It would be cruel to make her relive it. But Beth would not be a coward.

'You were working in Devon. You said that. Did you move there then?'

Ellie extracted herself from Beth's hold. 'Me and Fred did. Couldn't go far. Tom might've needed me.'

Beth found herself confronted by the blank spaces of Ellie's life.

What was she doing the day—the hour—they buried Danny? Where had she been the night they lit the beacons? Did she know Tom was leaving when he said goodbye?

Beth shook off the momentary sadness. Tom was still alive to hug.

'Lucy called every night. Telling me what he needed. What he was doing.'

_Keep her talking_, Beth thought. 'Did the police put you up?'

'They helped me find a place to stay. Something small I could afford, easy to heat.' Ellie gulped down a laugh. 'Fred took his first real steps there. Three steps and he'd be across the room. Saved me having to run round after him.'

Beth felt herself mirror Ellie's joyless smile.

Her own home was nothing special. A normal family home. Two stories, four bedrooms. Open plan kitchen. A place to hang pictures, photos, the kids' artwork. Keepsakes built up over a lifetime.

If she lost it all tomorrow, she'd live—Danny's death had taught her that. But his death had also taught her the pain of losing irreplaceable things.

She could live without her house and the things in it, but how strange—how disorientating—to find it all suddenly gone. Winked out of existence. Leaving her in a space as empty as a blank page.

In some ways it might have been best to lose everything. Lose Mark, lose Chloe. Lose the house. Lose familiar things and the need to care about them.

Then perhaps she could pretend life with her family had simply been a dream.

With no home to go back to, perhaps if it had all seemed a dream, the pain would have hurt less.

Beth was flooded with sudden jealousy. Ellie had had the freedom of escape. It hadn't harmed her, had it?

'And Hardy? Your mates from work?'

'It doesn't work that way.'

Prickles ran up Beth's skin. It wasn't like Ellie to be evasive.

'I wasn't up to much. Seeing people. Fred and I made it a nice little home for the two of us.' Ellie looked up. 'Beth, I'm sorry about you mum. I wanted to ...'

It hit Beth. She'd never hear the full story. Not with Ellie shielding her. Deflecting her—from what?

She swallowed.

Misery.

* * *

A blast of cold air rushed in the front door and down the passageway to the tiny kitchen in the Dorchester flat.

'That you, love?' Pat turned down the gas on his saucepan. He'd never hear the end of it if he let the water boil off the peas again.

Kate pegged her coat at the door, then beelined to the living room and its sideboard. When she turned to face him, tumbler in hand, he raised an eyebrow.

'So. What do you think?'

She drained the drink before replying. 'You've known her for how long?'

'Gone two decades maybe. Why?'

'And she's been straight up with you all that time?'

'As good as they come. Every force has got one—one decent cop worth talking to.'

Kate stared at him before pouring herself another drink. 'You don't think it's all just a big act?'

Pat felt a shiver of cold. He _liked_ Ellie, but Kate had a knack for getting into her subjects' heads. He'd assumed Ellie's infamous undoing in the box had been because of the stress and impossibility of her situation. It never occurred to him that she might have had something to hide. But if Kate had come away with doubts ...

'What did she tell you?'

Kate swirled the liquid in her glass. 'It's not what she said. It's what she didn't.'

'Did she not play ball?'

'No, she answered my questions.'

'So ...?'

Kate gave him a smirk. 'Wait and read. Ummm—something smells good. Pasta sauce?' She brushed past him on her way to the kitchen, stealing a quick kiss. She could be so maddening.

Pat took another stab at getting more out of her. 'What about all that nonsense over an affair?'

Kate paused over the stove, lifting the lid on a pot with her free hand and testing the air with a judgmental sniff. 'You can see why the defence would go there—'

Pat's jaw dropped. 'No ...'

'I don't think she's lying.'

'But?'

Kate shrugged. 'Just a vibe. Did you have any luck tracking Joe Miller down?'

Pat made a face. 'Hit a dead end with that. We'll keep at it.'

'We're not stinting on this.' Her eyes flashed a sudden warning. 'You promised me free rein.'

* * *

'Can I ask you something?' Beth put the cup of tea in front of Ellie, who smiled her gratitude.

'Anything.'

Beth hated the eagerness to please on Ellie's face. 'When they said you were having an affair—'

'Which I wasn't!'

Beth's mouth quirked. 'You get so defensive.'

'Sorry.'

'I'm the one who shou—'

'Don't. Please, Beth.'

They fell silent until Beth pressed on. 'Didn't you think—'

Ellie's curls shook. 'It came from nowhere, Beth. If I'd known that's where they were going, I'd have been prepared.'

'But it wasn't the truth. Why did you let it get to you?'

Ellie turned her head toward the afternoon shadow creeping into a corner of the room. 'It hurt.'

_Like hearing your husband tell the world your marriage was over._

Beth retreated from the subject.

'D'you know where he's gone?'

Ellie gave her a startled, wary look. 'Who?'

Beth cursed her thoughtlessness and hastened to clarify. 'Alec Hardy? He left town pretty quickly.'

'He finished what he set out to do.'

Wrapped up in the emotion of the verdict, the news of arrests in Hardy's other murder investigation had almost bypassed Beth. She didn't recognise the man or the woman, but Ricky Gillespie's name would have left her feeling hollow if she hadn't already been stricken by Joe getting off.

Beth's knowledge of Sandbrook was sketchy; Ellie's involvement had been another surprise. How had she been living this double life? Turning up at court every day to have her life upended like the rest of them, then leaving the courthouse and immersing herself in this other investigation.

'Here—how did you get caught up in Sandbrook?'

Ellie sipped her tea before answering. 'Hardy asked for help. He never stopped working on it.'

She rolled her eyes. 'The whole time I thought he was a stick-up-the-arse, by-the-book wanker, he was actually hiding one of the suspects here.'

There was more to this story than Beth could have guessed. 'Why'd he do that?'

Ellie shrugged. 'Something he needed to do.'

'I met Cate Gillespie. Did you know? Karen White set it up for me.'

It was Ellie's turn to glance up in surprised. 'Really?'

Beth nodded. 'She warned me about Hardy.'

Ellie's nose crinkled. 'Beth—'

'I know he was your boss, but so much came out at the trial. There were so many mistakes. What good is knowing who murdered Danny if we couldn't get a conviction?'

'You know he's had health problems?'

Beth nodded. 'All sorts of rumours went round.'

'Did you know he discharged himself from hospital once? His heart had stopped. They were gonna scale back Danny's investigation. We were so close—he walked out of hospital and back into work the same day—'

'If he was so good, why'd so many things go wrong?'

Ellie leaned back, her gaze climbing as her head shook.

'I wish I had done things differently, Beth. But if I had to relive it, I couldn't have changed it. I wasn't who you needed.

'I couldn't stand Hardy at first—he was such a git—but he was the right git.'

* * *

**June 27, 2014**

Kate winced and pulled the page to her nose, peering at the text with a scowl.

'Ugh. Heat twice in the opening paras—why didn't Brigid get that? It sounds clunky. If I'd had more time—'

Pat grinned. 'Always the perfectionist. Brigid left it because I told her to leave it in. She did fix your punctuation though, dear. You're a bloody shocker with a comma.'

'Hang on.' She flicked through the pages, scanning. 'Where is it?'

'Where's what?'

'The line about being unable to track down Joe Miller for comment—the one I added?' She dropped the magazine to look at him.

Pat leaned over her shoulder to examine the front page of the story. 'Oh, yes—I see what you mean. Completely gone, inn't?'

'What?'

'It may have been subbed out,' Pat said.

She twisted to stare at him. 'What? By Brigid?'

His face remained placid, but the corner of his mouth was fighting a twitch.

She drew back in her chair. 'Are you insane?'

'Probably. I married you, didn't I?'

'Why would you do that?'

'Marry you? You were cute and you said yes? All above board, I think.'

She brandished the magazine under his nose and he grinned again.

'Dumbarton said we were sailing close to the wind, legally speaking, but Joe Miller'd have to be pretty ballsy to take us on.'

'What do you mean? They found him not guilty—_any_ inference of guilt could get us in hot water. I married you for your money, you daft bugger. What'll I do if you're paying out damages on this for the next five years?'

'Miller's not going to do anything, Kate, sweetheart. He doesn't have the guts. And if he did ... I confess the prospect sort of intrigues me.'

'Intrigues you?_ Intrigues_ you?'

'Think about it. Defamation's a civil proceeding.'

'Yes?'

'The burden of proof is no longer reasonable doubt.'

She blinked.

'The balance of probabilities,' she intoned.

'Truth defence. You think a judge would find it likely Joe Miller committed murder on the balance of probabilities.'

He studied her. 'You don't?'

'You old fool. You're really crazy enough to risk a fortune on—what? A common kid killer? Based on your own—suspect, I must mention—understanding of the law?'

Pat bared his teeth in a vicious smile. 'Still think the jury got it right?'

She huffed, pushing back in her chair. 'Doesn't matter what I think.'

Pat reached out.

'Yeah, it does,' he said, taking her hand and squeezing it.

'It does to Ellie Miller.'

* * *

To view Kate's article (as it appeared reprinted in the Broadchurch Echo) requires a little googling. Typing bluelamia AND "heart on her sleeve" should get you there.

_Your comments gratefully received._


	2. heart on her sleeve

**A/N:** I was initially reluctant to upload _Heart On Her Sleeve_ here. It was created as a visual work (which can be seen on the bluelamia tumblr account under the 'articlefic' link). To satisfy my (precious) need for artistic integrity, I've uploaded the story in the form of a digital archive entry. If Olly goes onto his computer and checks the Broadchurch Echo digital text archive, this is what he'll see.

I believe it is easier to read in its newspaper format (and is much prettier).

* * *

**Publication:** Broadchurch Echo Weekend Extra  
**Headline:** Heart on her sleeve  
**Print Run Date:** 28/06/2014  
**Page:** 1-5  
**Digital Run Date:**  
**Reporter:** Kate Sugar  
**Source:** Wessex Life  
**Standfirst:** Joe Miller's trial for murder is over, but his wife and former Broadchurch detective, Ellie Miller, knows she still faces the court of public opinion. **Kate Sugar** reports.

**Text:** 'You can never really know the heart of another person.'

The tea in our pot's lost its blistering heat, crumbs sprinkle the china plate in front of us—but until she utters these words, I've privately been doubting Ellie Miller's commitment to this interview.

Despite the indoor heat, she's yet to divest herself of her bright orange anorak. Safety vest? I've penciled on my notepad. She smiles. A lot. Nicely—kindly, actually—but it's hard to miss how her gaze drifts to the exit whenever she thinks I'm not looking.

But when she says those words, it's me finding myself pinned down by a pair of intense dark, wide set eyes.

'A friend told me that when I was trying to make sense of everything. It felt true. But in the long run it's cold comfort,' she says. 'Something I tell myself to myself to pretend to get a good night's sleep.'

'An excuse?' I posit.

'Yep,' she agrees. 'An excuse.'

It's a surprise Miller has agreed to meet me at this beachfront Broadchurch cafe. Even more so that we are sitting over tea and cake discussing the vagaries of the human heart.

Formerly a detective sergeant in Broadchurch, Miller was one of the lead officers in the investigation into the death of 11-year-old Daniel Latimer, whose body was found beneath the cliffs on Harbour Cliff Beach a year ago.

She was also—as it would turn out—married to the man who became the crime's chief suspect.

Joe Miller, 39, has now been found not guilty of murder, leaving important questions unanswered and raising new doubts many about Miller herself.

Something she is keenly aware of.

'I know I'll never escape those doubts. Scarring—that's how the trial felt. It's left a mark.'

Scars fade, I suggest.

'But they never really go away, do they?' she says.

After news broke of Joe Miller's arrest, Ellie Miller, 40, became an invisible presence in this small Dorset town.

A name whispered around corners and in supermarket aisles—conversations quick to carry the latest rumours while the woman herself was nowhere to be seen.

It's no mystery where she went, she says: 'I went into shock.'

Shock, as it turns out, is in Devon.

When others would have run, Miller moved county and slipped quietly back into uniform, joining a Devon traffic squad. Hovering on the periphery of Dorset. Unable to rejoin it, but equally unable to leave.

That Joe Miller was charged with the crime was headline-grabbing enough. The ensuing trial, however, threw up so many accusations and inflicted so many blows on her credibility one is left to query the wisdom of Miller's return.

Yet with the verdict in, Miller has made the confounding decision to come home and speak about the last year of her life.

Miller knows if she wants to live here again she has no choice but to accept that her name is woven into the fabric of gossip and innuendo that dress small town life.

She is, understandably, guarded on some topics. Since his acquittal, Joe Miller, originally of Cardiff, has disappeared from Dorset.

Miller spreads her ringless fingers on the table and studies them, taking her time to respond. 'I have no idea where Joe is now.'

Her opinion on the verdict can't be drawn. She shrugs when I broach it. 'It is what it is.'

As an investigating officer though, she must have some thoughts?

Another shrug. 'The investigation into Danny's death isn't being reopened. End of story.'

So her husband didn't do it, yet the police aren't going to follow up on the theory put forward by her husband's barrister?

Miller makes a look I can only describe as one of contempt. 'No.'

In a trial full of scandalous revelations and allegations, one of the most sensational claims pointed the blame at Danny's father, Broadchurch plumber Mark Latimer.

Latimer admitted having sex with a hotel proprietor the night of Danny's death and later being just yards from the hut where it's believed Danny was strangled.

'Mark Latimer is not considered a person of interest,' Miller says.

Unless startling new evidence is unearthed, it is unlikely the investigation will be re-visited.

'The trial was what it was. I've put it aside. All the verdict means is that somewhere in our community—or another—a killer is walking free. That's not very comforting, is it?'

Broadchurch is the town Ellie Miller was born and grew up in. The town she married and raised a family in. Devoted her care and career to. The town she couldn't protect.

She blinks. 'I didn't know it needed protecting.'

With a career spanning nearly 20 years, Miller has long been a familiar face on the Broadchurch force. But since the murder she has never publicly put her side of the story forward. Why now?

The smile she gives this question is wry. 'Therapy.'

She wants to rebuild her life and that means rebuilding trust. That goes both ways, she says.

It's more than that, of course. The trial is over. There's no sub judice 'no comment' excuse to hide behind—not that any media outlet ever got close enough for her to use it.

Miller has kept a remarkably low profile.

And then there's this extraordinary Sandbrook development. A cold case seemingly consigned to the scrapheap of policing incompetence. Yet now there have been arrests and Miller, somehow, is at the heart of the action.

How does a disgraced police officer relegated to traffic duties get herself involved in a mystery so tainted all right-thinking officers have quietly toed it into the cupboard where career death cases go to moulder?

She shrugs, throwing my words back at me. 'A dead career can't get any deader, can it?'

As soon as the words pop out if her mouth, she grimaces and bows her head. 'I didn't mean that. I love my job.'

Sandbrook, she then reminds me, is off limits in this conversation. 'It's before the court, so ...'

But she helped solve it? That must be cause for some satisfaction, I ask.

'Satisfaction,' she says, hand on chin. 'I suppose that's the word. Doesn't help you sleep any better at night though.'

The death of 12-year-old Pippa Gillespie and the disappearance of her 19-year-old cousin, Lisa Newberry, from Pippa's home in Sandbrook shook the South Mercia community two years ago.

Equally shocking was the collapse of the trial of Lee Ashworth, the Sandbrook man accused of murdering the pair, after key evidence went missing.

Both the Sandbrook and Broadchurch investigations were headed by Detective Inspector Alec Hardy, and Ashworth's recent arrival in Dorset may be linked to the about-turn in the investigation.

The body of a woman believed to be Newberry has been recovered, and Ashworth, 38, his wife Claire Ripley, 36, and Pippa's father, Ricky Gillespie, 41, have been charged in relation to the deaths.

However it played out, there seems no doubt Miller was instrumental in the case's dramatic conclusion. Will it go some way to redeeming or redefining her career?

She's the wrong person to ask and now is not the time, she says, closing me down—at least on Sandbrook.

About Broadchurch she sums up her dilemma and why she's decided to give a one-off interview.

'I can tell you what happened—that's all. Once the words leave my mouth, that's it. I can't make you believe me and if I spend my life trying, I'll wear myself out.

'I don't want to wear myself out.'

If you believe Ellie Miller, it's hard not to feel for her. To see, in her story, the bones of her own Thomas Hardy tragedy if the Victorian novelist was writing in modern times.

If you believe her.

The truth she's asking you to believe is—her own description from the box—'horrific'.

It goes like this: one day DS Miller left for work a happily married woman, mother of two boys, and eventually came home the wife of a murderer. One who, by his own confession, she says, had developed an unhealthy affection for her older son's best friend.

Danny's body was discovered by a morning walker on July 18 last year.

He had been strangled.

All this under her own watch. Under her own nose. In her own house.

She knows how it looks. She has been left to agonise over clues she might have missed. Signs she might have noticed but misread.

'I didn't see anything that will haunt me for the rest of my life.'

She will learn to reconcile herself to the jibs about her professional competence, she says, but the personal blow is what hurts the most.

The Latimers were close family friends.

The jury in Joe Miller's trial was offered a hint of this story but his alleged confession was dramatically struck from evidence in open court when his defence team and broken ribs screamed it could have been beaten out of him.

The deep hurt on Ellie Miller's face is replaced with something new: scorn.

'The timing of it all, the video evidence from the interview rooms—it's all there—by the time I even knew, it was all over and done with. I mean the prison van was parked up outside waiting to cart him off by the time I got to see him. 'There's no suggestion—none ... not even from Joe—that anyone else had a go at him. Why would they?'

Miller doesn't need to be reminded the thumping she dealt her husband damaged the prosecution case.

'It's a weird thing being told your husband has confessed to killing a child. Nothing excuses what I did.

'I paid for it. Waiting for the verdict, when the jury filed back in, I think my heart was hammering its way out of my chest.'

If the jury made her pay with waiting, they punished her with their decision.

Because there's another story out there. One that says Miller was hiding her own secrets. That the friendly, honest image Broadchurch has had of DS Miller for 20 years isn't the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Miller, the defence said, was having an affair with her boss, DI Hardy.

Not only that. With a faltering inquiry, she turned, they said, to her sister. Bribing her to make a statement implicating her husband.

I see that look again the one that conveys Ellie Miller's blatant contempt. Either she is a brilliant actress or a naive ingenue.

'They said it was convenient that Lucy's description matched Joe. Convenient!

'How was that convenient? Having my family ripped apart, my career killed for the sake of what—a tawdry office affair?'

When Miller goes as still as a statue, gaze glued on the cup at her hand, not for the first time I wonder if I've lost her until she looks at me.

'Do you know what really hurt about that?'

I shake my head. I wonder if any of us can begin to imagine.

'He was my husband. He was my world. I loved him. I thought he loved me. Yet he let them make those accusations. He let me walk into that box and watched them take me down.

'He let that happen.'

We'll never know the thinking of the jury, but their not-guilty verdict must indicate they thought the allegations were at least possible.

'It hurts knowing people don't believe you.'

With so much uncertainty eddying around her, Miller knows the scrutiny she'll forever face from her neighbours.

'Rumours are awful. I just laugh at the more ridiculous ones now. But—funny—I almost prefer it when people confront me directly. At least then you know where you stand with them.'

On the worst days she can almost see grim humour in her situation, she says.

'It'll always be a case of damned if I do, damned if I don't. Take yesterday. An elderly neighbour I've known for years stopped me in the street to scold me and asked if I regretted not standing by my husband now he's been found innocent.

'Half an hour later a stranger came up to me while I was pushing my son on a swing at the park and asked how I could 'effing' live with myself after I 'effed' up the 'effing' trial.'

Yet surely she'd considered the ways her testimony and actions would be interpreted? Was she shocked by the defence allegations?

'Bit blindsided really—that's the word you want.'

In all her preparation for the trial, it never crossed her mind these allegations would be made?

'Good god, no. Naive, I know, but you think you'll be dealing in facts. It never even occurred to me that somebody would assume I was having an affair. Or that they'd say I'd pinned a murder on my own husband because of it who would do that? I mean, really?'

Her expression is perplexed as if even now, after having time to digest the suggestion, it still bewilders her.

Her response in the box is another cause for self-recrimination. The accusations riled Miller and her outbursts earned her a reprimand from the presiding judge.

Miller grimaces. 'You always know afterwards how you should have handled a situation. What you should have said. At the time, when you're under attack, you're wound up, your mind goes blank.'

It didn't matter that the allegations weren't true, she says. 'It's sickening to have the truth twisted. You feel powerless—you are powerless.'

Thanks to CCTV footage unearthed by a dogged defence team, it's public record Miller visited Hardy late the evening her husband was arrested.

Evidence, the defence contended, of a liaison between the officers.

Miller rolls her eyes.

'The day your husband gets arrested for murder isn't the day you're looking for a shag—it's the day you need a friend.

None—I repeat—none of what the defence put out there was true. Did I make mistakes? Yes. Was I having an affair? No. Did I bribe my sister? No. Did I frame my husband to get him out of the way ...?' Her head shakes long after her voice trails off.

That she would gravitate to her boss for answers makes sense since he was the one who began to connect the dots, she says.

'I was desperate for answers. It was ... a lot to take in. Who else was going to have them?

'We weren't exactly downing shots in celebration. I think he felt s*** for arresting Joe and I felt s*** for well everything.'

Yet, during the trial Miller and Hardy were seldom seen far apart. Didn't it occur to her to be concerned about how the jury would read this?

Her eyebrow goes up. 'Well, there was nothing to hide. We worked the case together. What we were supposed to bloody do?'

So how close are they?

'He can be a grumpy bastard—no—better not write that. Let's just say we've had our disagreements.

'He was a good friend to me when I most needed it.'

Hardy is no longer with Wessex Police, having moved after the trial. With the stigma of Sandbrook no longer hanging over him, she hopes he can get back to the career he loves as much as she does.

She wishes him well, she says.

'He's a bloody good cop. I hope people know that.'

It's taken Miller months to get to the point of feeling she can return home. The time between her husband's arrest and his trial was a blur.

'I felt sanest just after the arrest. Stunned, I suppose, but still capable seeing with this awful, awful clarity. I knew what I had to do. I knew I had to get myself and the boys out. The initial shock was like a painkiller.

'Then it wore off. I woke up and all that resolve had vanished.

'Overnight I turned into a mess. I went to bed thinking, I'm okay, I can get us through this. I woke up nothing.

'My oldest went into denial. I did nothing could do nothing to stop it. He needed someone strong—not someone curled in pieces sobbing on a hotel bed.

'He ended up calling my sister and asking to live with her. Packed his bags and picked up the phone himself. I didn't even know what was happening. Again.'

Whatever her mental state, she brushes off any praise she might garner for her decision to stick with her job.

'There was nothing brave about it. Being a cop it's all I ever wanted to be. They told me to take a break. To consider emigration. They meant well but it felt like my job was all I had left. The only thing I had going for myself and which I had left to give the kids.'

It wasn't easy, she admits.

'I had the job just. I struggled with my first real crime scene. I went into autopilot mode. I knew how to follow procedure, how to tick the boxes, but I had no emotion doing it.

'If you're one of the many people I ticketed ...'

Memories of the past year she has lived in Devon are indistinct. She looks troubled when I ask her how she filled her time.

'Just ... surviving. My son wanted nothing to do with me and I was in no state to parent him.'

What contact did she have with colleagues? Friends?

'I cut everyone out. I had to.'

Everyone?

'Everyone.' She says it with a shrug, but I get the feeling this is no mere exaggeration.

She is better now, she says, but regular sleep remains elusive.

While Ellie Miller may have shut down, she wasn't without defenders within the community.

Our conversation has been interrupted several times already by people popping over to say hello and asking after her and her boys.

A woman of a thousand smiles, she greets them all with warmth.

And she may have vanished from their midst, but Miller's former Broadchurch colleagues closed rank around her. No surprises there—the police have a ferocious policy of protecting their own.

But the strength of their blanket efforts to quash any attempt to dig deeper into Miller invites reflection. Here is a woman who commands unshakeable loyalty from her colleagues.

In what might prove to be the most accurate description anyone will give of her, the only thing I could pry in preparation for this interview was this comment from a burly copper who politely escorted me from the Broadchurch station: 'Ell? What you see is what you get.'

Miller has been polite answering my questions. The lesson she learned from her friend about the mystery of the human heart may console her in her darkest moments, but how true is it?

Miller herself might be the obvious contradiction ... because if what you see is what you get with Ellie Miller, her heart is very plainly worn on her sleeve.

A shrill beep heralds an incoming text and when Miller looks up from it, I sense for the first time, some harried agitation.

'My sister's got my youngest—he's going through a growth spurt at the moment. Makes him crotchety. It's not fair to leave him with her. He's missed so much already.'

I press further and she confesses he's smeared jam on a neighbour's cat. She's telling me, I note, with a mixture of parental embarrassment and guilty amusement.

'You won't tell Lucy I laughed, will you?'

If her job kept her going day to day, it was an eye on the future for her children, aged 12 and two, which forced her to pick herself up, she says.

Both are doing 'as well as can be expected'.

The future remains clouded for Miller. Where does she see herself fitting in?

'Broadchurch is my home. I thought hard about leaving it, but where would I go? The people I care about are here.'

But she could make a new start elsewhere?

Her words: 'Why should I? I thought at first I'd have to then I realised something. I wasn't guilty so why was I acting it? It's too easy to blame yourself for things which are beyond your control.'

There's much to repair. Broken homes, broken friendships, broken families. But the trial, as cruel and exposing as it was, has also been a catalyst for positive changes.

A much publicized photo after the verdict reveals any rift between Miller and the Latimer family has healed.

'The right people know what happened. That's the best comfort I can have.'

So, for that reason, she'll live with the stares and the whispers behind backs of hands, the confrontations in the street or the park. All she wants to do now is create a stable home for her children and get back to the people and the job she loves.

She's working with Broadchurch Police on a potential return to the area.

If doubts linger over her ability to do that job, she doesn't let them show. 'I know what I can do—now it's just get on and do it.'

If the trial has left its mark, she'll never forget the reason behind those scars.

'I'd be cross-examined everyday the rest of my life if it meant getting Danny back.'

While the future offers her a way forward, it won't be without reminders of her past.

Always at the back of her mind is a thought which keeps her awake at night and may well for years to come: 'Danny's killer is still out there we should all be concerned about that.'

Ellie Miller calls me late that night. 'I know I can't ask you to leave out some of that rubbish I said. I know I'll regret it later and complain about how you took me out of context. But I can't take any of it back. That's another thing you learn.'

Softly almost imperceptibly just before the dial tone, I hear one more thing.

'I wish I'd known.'

**Notes:** Reprint by permission  
**Captions:**  
BACK: Former Broadchurch Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller has come home.  
CRIME SCENE: Harbour Cliff Beach where Daniel Latimer's body was discovered.  
FLICKR/ Paul Pitman MURDERED: Danny Latimer, 11.  
UNDER ATTACK: Ellie Miller faces cross-examination at Wessex Crown Court.  
PAST LIFE: Joe Miller with son Tom and wife Ellie before his arrest for the murder of Daniel Latimer.  
REUNITED: Ellie Miller and Beth Latimer farewell Danny on the beach where he was found.

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Your comments are gratefully received.


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